Government Center, Boston

The American House (established 1835) was a hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, located on Hanover Street. Abraham W. Brigham, Lewis Rice (1837–1874), Henry B. Rice (1868–1888), and Allen E. Jones (c. 1921) served as proprietors. In 1851 the building was expanded, to a design by Charles A. Alexander. In 1868 it had "the first hotel passenger elevator in Boston." By the 1860s it also had "billiard halls, telegraph office, and cafe." In the late 19th century it was described as "the headquarters of the shoe-and-leather trade" in the city. Guests of the hotel and restaurant included John Brown, Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Whitwell Greenough, Charles Savage Homer, Zadoc Long, and George Presbury Rowell. Many groups held meetings there, among them: Granite Cutters' International Association of America, Letter Carriers' Association, National Electric Light Association, and New England Shorthand Reporters' Association. The hotel closed in 1916, and re-opened under new management in 1918. It permanently closed on August 8, 1935, and the building was shortly afterwards demolished to make room for a parking lot. The John F. Kennedy Federal Building now occupies the site.

City Hall Plaza in Boston, Massachusetts, is a large, open, public space in the Government Center area of the city. The architectural firm Kallmann McKinnell & Knowles designed the plaza in 1962 to accompany Boston's new City Hall building. The multi-level, irregularly shaped plaza consists of red brick and concrete. The Government Center MBTA station is located beneath the plaza; its entrance is at the southwest corner of the plaza.

Thermopylae is a 1966 bronze sculpture by Dimitri Hadzi, installed at Boston City Hall Plaza near the John F. Kennedy Federal Building, in Boston's Government Center, in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building is a United States federal government office building located in the Government Center area of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to City Hall Plaza and diagonally across from Boston City Hall. An example of 1960s modern architecture, and designed by Walter Gropius and The Architects Collaborative with Samuel Glaser, it is a complex that consists of two offset 26-floor towers that sit on-axis to each other and a low rise building of four floors that connects to the two towers through an enclosed glass corridor. The two towers stand at a height of 387 feet (118 m). The complex was built in 1963-1966. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021.

The Quincy House was a hotel in downtown Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Located on the corner of Brattle Street and Brattle Square in the neighborhood of Scollay Square, it was in operation for most of the 19th and early 20th centuries, before it was closed in 1929. It was the largest hotel in Boston in the late 19th century, and was a popular destination for prominent guests to the city. It also served as a major headquarters for labor unions in Boston.

The Crawford House was a hotel and restaurant in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. Located on Court and Brattle Streets in Scollay Square, it was in operation during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and was for a time among the leading hotels in the city. The building was demolished in 1962 as part of the Government Center project.

The Concert Hall (1752–1869) was a performance and meeting space in Boston, Massachusetts, located at Hanover Street and Queen Street. Meetings, dinners, concerts, and other cultural events took place in the hall.

"Cop slide" refers to an internet meme and viral phenomenon caused by a video of a police officer tumbling down a childrens' slide in the playground of Boston City Hall Plaza. The video became viral on TikTok in August 2023, causing an influx of visitors using the slide and prompting enforcement of restrictions on its use by the city, as well as scientific analysis of the initial incident.

Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block are a pair of adjacent historic buildings located along Cornhill in Boston, Massachusetts. It is adjacent to City Hall and City Hall Plaza, Government Center, Boston. Sears' Crescent was constructed in 1816 as a series of Federal period commercial rowhouses. Around 1860 these were given a unified curving facade with Italianate styling. The Sears' Block, built in 1848, is a rare surviving instance of granite post-and-lintel construction. Both buildings were developed by David Sears, a leading mid-19th-century developer of Boston who was responsible for the filling of Back Bay. They are the only buildings that remain on the original route of Cornhill, one of Boston's oldest streets, most of whose route has been lost or obscured by urban renewal.The buildings were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.The Sears' Block is now the location of the "Steaming Tea Kettle", an 1873 trade sign commissioned by the Oriental Tea Company that was located on a Court Street building demolished in 1967 during the construction of Government Center. The kettle was refurbished and reinstalled in 2016 after being damaged, apparently by a truck.Sears' Crescent was acquired in 2016 by Chevron Partners.

Scollay Square (c. 1838–1962) was a vibrant city square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was named for William Scollay, a prominent local developer and militia officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of the Cambridge and Court Streets in the year 1795. Local citizens began to refer to this intersection as Scollay's Square, and, in 1838, the city officially memorialized the intersection as the Scollay Square. Early on, the area was a busy center of commerce, including daguerreotypist (photographer) Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) and Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, the first dentist to use ether as an anaesthetic. As early as the 1950s city officials had been mulling plans to completely tear the Square down and redevelop the area. Eventually more than 1,000 buildings were demolished and 20,000 residents were displaced. With $40 million in federal funds, the city built an entirely new development there, Government Center.

Government Center station is an MBTA subway station in Boston, Massachusetts. It is located at the intersection of Tremont, Court and Cambridge Streets in the Government Center area. It is a transfer point between the light rail Green Line and the rapid transit Blue Line. With the Green Line platform having opened in 1898, the station is the third-oldest operating subway station (and the second-oldest of the quartet of "hub stations") in the MBTA system; only Park Street and Boylston are older. The station previously served Scollay Square before its demolition for the creation of Boston City Hall Plaza. The station was closed on March 22, 2014 for a major renovation, which included retrofitting the station for accessibility and building a new glass headhouse on City Hall Plaza. The new fully accessible station was reopened on March 21, 2016.

The Palace Theatre (ca.1891-1931) of Boston, Massachusetts was a variety theatre on Court Street in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Acts which performed there included Rose Hill Folly Co., Clifford & Dixon, Murry & Murry, Behler & Stone, and the Adamless Eden Burlesquers. It also showed photo-plays such as The Exploits of Elaine, The Master Key, and "Charles Chaplin comedies." Among its managers and proprietors were William Austin, F. J. Pilling, George Milbank, and Dunn & Waldron. The Palace occupied the building of the former Nickelodeon. It existed until 1931, when it was demolished.